As the Ottawa Senators look to make amends for dropping three out of four points to their closest rival last weekend, they are hoping to get an important piece to their lineup back, while they have lost another.

Mark Stone, who has missed the last seven games, is expected to return to the lineup from the lower body injury he was dealing with. Not sure who comes out of the lineup as of now, but my guess would be Tommy Wingels or Viktor Stalberg. They will obviously be without defenseman Marc Methot and his much talked about finger injury suffered from a Sidney Crosby slash on Thursday night. Freddie Claesson will draw into the lineup in his place, an adequate fill-in, but Methot's minutes will be hard to replace.

Ottawa laid an egg in the return matchup in Montreal last week a night after falling in a shootout at home, but the teams have gone in different directions since then. After that Montreal win Sunday, the gap was four points, but Montreal has lost twice (picking up one point) while the Senators won both of their games to get the margin back to 1 point.

If Craig Anderson gets the start, and I say IF because over the last week I have been surprised a couple of times about who would be in the Ottawa net, it will be his 500th career start.

This game kicks off a five game road trip that continues Tuesday in Philadelphia and will go through Minnesota, Winnipeg and Detroit.

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